You might have figured that John Lackey, having actually pitched deep into a ballgame last night — a game the Sox ended up winning — would have been happy about it. But happy he wasn’t, as was clear from the bizarre scene at his locker.

After being asked about his rocky first inning — which annoyed him enough — he went off on an unexpected tanget:

“Let me tell you the truth. Thirty minutes before the game I got a text message on my cell phone from one of you, somebody in the media, talking about personal stuff. I shouldn’t even have to be standing up here dealing with it. I’m sitting here, listening to music. I don’t know who got my phone number, but that’s over the line. Anything else you want to talk about?’’

Though Lackey probably needs a way to figure out how to keep his cool better in tough situations, you can probably understand that Lackey wouldn’t be pleased getting a text about his apparently impending divorce before the game. You can probably also figure that the way this is coming out, at least as it is couched in that TMZ article — “Red Sox John Lackey Divorcing Wife Battling Cancer” — is going to distress him greatly.

As for that TMZ story: I suppose there is a more loaded way to report that kind of thing, but I’m struggling to see how. Assuming it is true, yes, John Lackey is divorcing his wife. A wife who, yes, has been and likely still is battling cancer. But there’s an implication of a connection between those two things, it seems to me, designed to make Lackey look insensitive.

Fact is, we have no idea what’s going on with him and his wife and, though it’s probably too much to expect from an outfit like TMZ, one would hope that the media will tread carefully here.

Look, I can’t sit here and say that I can envision a situation in which I’d leave my wife if she had cancer. But at the same time, there are a couple of possibilities here. (1) Lackey is a horrible monster of a person; or (2) any number of things that we don’t and can’t know are going on with his marriage and that great unknown in a private zone of his life makes it really inappropriate for us to come down with a moral judgment at the moment.

Former Mets catcher Johnny Monell signed a contract with the KT Wiz of the Korea Baseball Organization, per a report by Chris Cotillo of SB Nation. The 30-year-old originally struck a deal with the NC Dinos on Thursday, but the deal appeared to fall through at the last minute, according to Cotillo’s unnamed source.

Monell last surfaced for the Mets during their 2015 run, batting a dismal .167/.231/.208 with two extra bases in 52 PA before the club DFA’d him to clear space for Bartolo Colon. While he’s had difficulty sticking at the major league level, he’s found a higher degree of success in the minor league circuit and holds a career .271 average over a decade of minor league play. He played exclusively in Triple-A Las Vegas during the 2016 season, slashing .276/.336/.470 with 19 home runs and a career-high 75 RBI in 461 PA.

The veteran backstop appears to be the second MLB player to join the KT Wiz roster this offseason, as right-hander Donn Roach also signed with the club last month on a one-year, $850,000 deal.

Brewers’ right-hander Phil Bickford received a 50-game suspension after testing positive for a drug of abuse, per the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Shaikin. This is the second time Bickford has been suspended for recreational drug use, as he was previously penalized in 2015 after testing positive for marijuana prior to the amateur draft.

Bickford was selected by the Giants in the first round of the 2015 draft and was later dealt to the Brewers for lefty reliever Will Smith at the 2016 trade deadline. He finished his 2016 campaign in High-A Brevard County, pitching to a 3.67 ERA, 10.0 K/9 rate and 5.0 BB/9 over 27 innings.

Two other suspensions were handed down on Friday, one to Toronto minor league right-hander Pedro Loficial for a positive test for metabolites of Stanozolol and one to Miami minor league outfielder Casey Soltis for a second positive test for drugs of abuse. Loficial will serve a 72-game suspension, while Soltis will serve 50 games. All three suspensions are due to start at the beginning of the 2017 season for each respective minor league team.

We are very disappointed to learn of Phil’s suspension, but we fully support the Minor League Baseball Drug Prevention and Testing Program and its enforcement by the Commissioner’s Office. Phil understands he made a mistake, and we fully anticipate that he will learn from this experience.